Norodom Phurissara

Norodom Phurissara (13 October 1919-April 1976) was Foreign Minister of Cambodia from 1966 to 1970, succeeding Norodom Viriya and preceding Yem Sambaur.

Biography
Norodom Phurissara was born in Phnom Penh, Cambodia in 1919, the cousin of King Norodom Sihanouk. In 1954, he became Secretary-General of the Democratic Party of Cambodia, and he steered the party increasingly to the left, adopting pro-communist ideas and opposing Cambodia's relationship with the United States. However, his party dissolved in 1955 under pressure from his cousin's Sangkum regime. He served as Foreign Minister from 1966 to 1970, and he became Minister of Justice of the GRUNK government-in-exile after the Khmer Republic seized power, only to be stripped of all real power by the Khmer Rouge. In April 1976, during the Cambodian Genocide, the Khmer Rouge took Phurissara to the Boeng Trabek re-education camp, where he was executed as part of a campaign to exterminate the more liberal Khmer Rouge members.